Socialist Afghanistan

</image> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Level</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> </infobox>Socialist Afghanistan, officially the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan refers to a period of the history of Afghanistan (1978 - 1992) in which the country was run in an authoritarian socialist manner. The government struggled massively with a civil war against US-backed far-right Islamist groups and Maoists.

Analysis

Positives

• The major positive action of socialist Afghanistan was the expansion of women's rights. Forced marriages were banned, women and girls were encouraged to work and get an education and legal equality between the sexes was introduced. Numerous women also held high positions in the Afghani government.

Negatives

• The government ultimately failed to withstand an imperialist onslaught and internal uprisings led by reactionary and conservative forces, as well as some on the left.
• In 1979, the government carried out a disastrous effort at land reform, it was extremely unpopular and agricultural productivity plummeted.
• The plans for industrial development in the late 1980s were extremely unsuccessful, promising 25% economic growth a year, but only reaching 2%. Although how much of this can be attributed to poor government planning policies vs the civil war is up for debate.
• Despite widespread literacy campaigns, the government failed to reduce illiteracy by much, in contrast to most other socialist societies.
• The government created a new climate of repression that even alarmed the USSR.
• The government suffered a massive amount of infighting and debate between moderates and radicals.

Lessons for the Future

• The authoritarian socialists are wrong, top-down governments and militaries are not sufficient to defend a socialist society from counter-revolutionaries and imperialist aggression. Even with the help of the USSR, the government failed to stop the counter-revolution, with disastrous results for the people of Afghanistan.
• Central planning is not necessarily good at managing a wartime economy, especially in contrast to other wartime experiments of libertarian socialism which even saw living standards improve.
• Land reform done by authoritarian socialists is a disaster.

Major Social Struggles

• 1979: Herat Uprising
• 1979: Bala Hissar Uprising

References

Wikipedia - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan